We question the received wisdom that birth limitation was absent among historical populations before the fertility transition of the late nineteenth-century. Using duration and panel models on family-level data, we find a causal, negative short-run effect of living standards on birth spacing in...

This paper examines evidence on the role of assimilation versus source country culture in influencing immigrant women's behavior in the United States — looking both over time with immigrants' residence in the United States and across immigrant generations. It focuses particularly on labor...